The fight that broke out in the Perpa Trade Center board elections may look like a dispute on the surface. However, the photo points to a deeper, more painful reality: The erosion of a merchant culture that is much more than a trade center.
Perpa takes its name from the Thursday Market. This name is not random. Thursday Bazaar is in Istanbul's trade memory “a promise is a promise” was a place where the motto was put into flesh and blood. There were debt books but no cheating; there was competition but no enmity; winning was essential but not at the expense of honor. Tradesmen knew their neighbors as companions, not rivals.
Today, under the same name, we are watching a completely different scene. A picture where chairs are flying in the air, where shouting drowns out reason, where seats take precedence over principle and representation... What we call an election is a declaration of will; a fight is where the will ends. The first test for those who claim to govern should have been to govern themselves.
This is what happened “a moment of anger” it's easy to brush it off. But what is easy is not what is right. Because the problem is not a single day, a single election, a single fight. The problem is the loss of value accumulated over the years. When the ethics of tradesmen are replaced by calculations of interest, when the responsibility of representation is replaced by a show of power, the result is inevitable.
Perpa is the breadwinner of thousands of people today. For this reason, everything that happens there does not just stay within the four walls; it becomes part of the language of trade, the memory of the city, and the language of young generations. “artisan” to what he understands by the word.
If young people today associate tradesmen with fighting, shouting and dirty relations, the blame for this lies not only with individuals but also with the silence of institutions.
This article is not a celebration of nostalgia. No one is saying that everything was rosy in the past. But there was a measure in the past. When that measure is lost, the spirit collapses even if the building remains standing.
Perpa needs to remember old values before new faces. Not to win elections, but to represent; not to take seats, but to bear responsibility.
The last word is this: The name of Thursday Bazaar is still alive. The question is whether or not we can keep that name alive. Because the day trade loses its ethics, it only makes money, but loses its reputation. And reputation is the most expensive loss.